PIERS FEETHAM GALLERY
WILLIAM PACKER 19 April – 12 May 2018
WILLIAM PACKER Recent Still Lifes & Other Thoughts I am still painting Still Life: as with so many things, the more one looks into the matter, the more there is to see. But I tend to work in fits and starts, on a related batch of pictures worked over a month or two, or three, and then stand back for a while and think about it all: or I get drawn away by other commitments – I have had rather a lot of writing on the go this past year or so. I also find the stimulus of a practical or material change will bring on a change in the work itself, and with it another batch. A few months ago I rearranged my studio, and with my easel now turned round, I work with light and shade falling quite the other way, and the difference in the work is plain to see. These days I only paint in natural light. But while still life remains the major preoccupation, it is by no means the only one. If I don’t work regularly from the landscape or the figure, it is only by default or circumstance. So there are some landscapes here too, as it were snatched from the scene onto the board as opportunity – which is to say holiday in most cases – allows. And I am also showing a few somewhat experimental invented heads, born partly of a life-long doodling compulsion, but also of a reviving interest and return to the figure composition of my art student days, long ago.
William Packer, April 2018
All Over The Place oil on linen 76 x 76 cm
Springtime
oil on linen 61 x 51 cm
Spring Fever
oil on linen 61 x 51 cm
All in a Row
oil on linen 38 x 46 cm
Yellow Band
oil on linen 61 x 51 cm
Up the lane from Campolungo oil on card 21 x 30 cm
Across the Valley, Domo, Marche oil on card 29 x 29 cm
Black and Blue oil on linen 61 x 61 cm
Floating Free
oil on linen 61 x 41 cm
Sorting Things Out oil on card 30 x 30 cm
Cubist Coffee Break oil on card 38 x 28 cm
Round the Corner oil on linen 46 x 38 cm
Olive Leaves
oil on canvas 43 x 36 cm
Day Lily, Evening oil on linen 41 x 41 cm
Daffs and Cerinthe oil on card 30 x 26 cm
Out of Sync - Pink and Purple oil on linen 61 x 51 cm
Over the Top
oil on board 50 x 41 cm
Blue Shirt
oil on card 30 x 30 cm
Turning Heads oil on card 30 x 23 cm
Wind Anemone oil on card 38 x 28 cm
Stripes
oil on card 30 x 21 cm
WILLIAM PACKER William Packer was born in 1940, educated at Windsor Grammar School, and trained as a painter at Wimbledon School of Art. He first exhibited his work in 1963, at the RA Summer Show, and nowadays shows principally with The New English Art Club, of which he is a member, and with Piers Feetham, this his 7th exhibition at the gallery. His parallel career as an art critic began in 1969, and from 1974 he was for 30 years the critic for the Financial Times: he writes now as a freelance. He also taught for many years, variously as studio teacher, visitor and examiner, at art schools around the country; has published several books; has been a selector for countless exhibitions; and, in the public sphere, has served on numerous committees, councils and boards. He is an Honorary Fellow of the RCA.